Push Factors Flashcards
Highland clearances
Land hunger
Potato blight
The highlands
Living conditions
Economic
Political aspects
Farming
Bothies
Fishing
Economic issues
Competition with immigrants
Recessions
Highland clearances
- Landowners rented out small bits of land to crofters to produce food(Duke of Sutherland)
- created debts and caused landlords to go bankrupt.
- Highland clearances, landlords evicted people to make room for sheep.
- The highlands had poor soil and no flat ground.
- Sheep farming was more profitable.
Land hunger
-Landlords subdivided their crofts to fit more people and make more money
-People didn’t have enough space to grow food to survive on
-Had to move to avoid starvation
Potato blight
-Spreads very quickly and can only be rid of by burning the soil
-Hit the Highlands in 1846 and meant they couldn’t have potatoes as their main food source
-Crofters had to leave to the lowlands with promises of land and food to avoid starvation
Work
-Highlands Scots worked on the land and struggled to make ends meet
-Migration was seen as temporary, and the highlanders tried to find work
-Girls from Bettyhill would travel to Wick during the summer to find work in the herring industry. This was a 15 hour walk
Living conditions
-Lived in ‘Blackhouse’, which were stone walls with thatched roofs
-Had no windows or chimneys, and so the house became black with soot
-Only one room shared between people and animals
-Diseases spread quickly eg Typhus or cholera through lyce and fleas
Economic
-Crofters made money by spinning cloth on a spinning wheel
-When the industrial revolution began in the 19th century, textile factories in Manchester and Glasgow were faster and cheaper, putting the crofters out of business
-Crofters harvested kelp to create soap. By the mid 1800s, there was competition from the whaling industry for soap making
Political aspects
